As an Art, Craft and Design teacher, who are various experiences of art education, I like to believe that every person has the capacity to adapt, learn and create many variations of work that gives them the freedom to express themselves visually. The main aspects of my teaching philosophy include inclusivity, flexibility, adaptability, pedagogy, analytical thinking and humility. I will always believe as an educator that all students need to be given the creative space to learn from their mistakes by creating, making, practicing and learning new techniques to overcome all challenges. It is also essential to me as a teacher to include many inclusive teaching approaches that can assist specific learning needs for each student who shares the same environment.

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To be a successful teacher, is to learn how to be encourage learning ideation, conversation and engagement without regurgitating information. As Socrates states that education is “the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel”; which indicates that students are human beings who need the freedom, and time to understand their own individual thinking.

 

My aim as an educator is to create a safe, comfortable, organised and supportive classroom environment to give students the opportunity to experience and enhance their potential to create project artwork that speaks about their identity. Learning is considered a collaborative exercise between teachers and students where all experiences are important.

 

To have the ability and potential to create meaningful experiences can lend itself into visual art. By knowing different methods, various tools, many processes, and creative techniques, they can provide art students with abilities to create an extensive visual language that lends into many lifelong learning future experiences. As an art teacher who has an interest in collecting, I believe it is beneficial to be a gatherer who collects research from resources, articles, leaflets, newspapers, academic papers, digital media, books, materials and even reusable trinkets. You never know when a student will need them on a rainy day.

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I also think it is important to be a teacher that has gained life experiences through other academic degree coursework to bring new insights, innovative practices, introduce various technologies, update teaching approaches and fresh curriculum plans into the visual art classroom. To give your students the best outcome of learning, it is essential to be attentive as a teacher to provide support, critiques, feedback, assessment, question and critically reflect regularly on their progress in the subject. This also means learning how to hold back from including extensive information, so students can learn how to think independently, experiment with their own interests, learn through looking at visual demonstrations, analyse other peers’ artwork, learn from the process and enjoy the art of making.

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While time management and organisation are essential to be a successful teacher, it’s also beneficial to be open to becoming a lifelong learner. To connect with all visual art students, teachers, lecturers, and experts from different creative disciplines can provide many opportunities to bring interesting conversations into a classroom. Learning visual art can also happen outside of a classroom when making connections towards nature, architecture, history, geography, science etc. which can bring important lessons that last a lifetime. As John Dewey once said, “education is not preparation for life, education is life itself”.

 

Finally, I will conclude that my main priorities as a future teacher will always ensure that each student is given a positive productive learning experience that helps them feel joy, support, encouragement, safety, mindfulness, patience, understanding, achievement, and success.